Anniversary Gift Ideas

Once a year we get to celebrate the day we promised to love our best friend forever! This day can be as special or as meaningful as you would like to make it. Time and time again we have had our fabulous readers emailing us asking for ideas for their Anniversary. We were excited to put together this fun week of ideas solely for that special day!

Today is ALL about the gift! It’s tradition to give your sweetheart a present, right! Whether it’s flowers, chocolate, a love letter, or something store-bought…..it’s kinda expected! {lol} We have 7 ideas that you could try out…..

Our FIRST idea would be to change things up a little and instead of just handing over a beautifully-wrapped present…..why not build up the anticipation!?! Isn’t everything a little better when there is excitement involved?!?

I recently wanted to surprise my sweetheart with a trip to DISNEYLAND! {Yeah….um….we never truly grew up!} We had both been when we were younger and always talked about going there together…before we had children of our own! Jamie was preparing for another stressful semester of schooling and I just felt that we needed some time away from everything for a little while.

I put together FOUR clues….each revealing a little more about his present. Flip flops & a towel, a picture of a beach, a picture of Mickey & Minnie, and the 5th clue was the actual plane itinerary. (Yep, this was for Christmas…..thus the Christmas colors on the cards….but this would work perfectly for an Anniversary present as well!) The LAST clue was in a folder with the words “TOP SECRET” written on the tab.

…as you can see….he was extremely excited and completely surprised when he opened the last clue. SCORE! {Ignore the bed-head! It was Christmas morning & we didn’t exactly get ready for the day. lol)

Alrighty….onto some other ideas….we will start with a few ideas on different books you can put together using pictures. Memories are ALWAYS a great idea to focus on!!

Just Another Year In Paradise

By: Kiirsten

You know the familiar Phil Vassar country song where each day is filled with everything short of the house imploding, yet it’s still a life of paradise because you’re married and dealing with it together? You’re totally nodding, aren’t you! Yeah, that song was the inspiration behind my anniversary gifts this year. Besides doing a bigger, more inclusive couple’s scrapbook that I had planned on doing for years (don’t we all?) I simply grabbed a 4×6 photo book and gathered hardcopies of my favorite pictures from just the past year.

On the page opposite of each picture, I typed my memory of that experience and why it made it into the book of 2010. Embellish each page up with a bit of color, background paper, or whatever fits your flavor, and you’ve got yourself a keepsake! This is very inexpensive and not time consuming if you do a few pictures a day – a must in many of our lives. We all know time has a way of fading memories… it’s the little things like this that will be invaluable as these years in “paradise” continue to roll.

100 Reasons Why I Love You

By: Lisa M.

You can never put a number on how many times to whisper in your spouse’s ear, “I Love You”. Why not go one step further by creating a gift that reminds that special someone just how much you adore him or her in your life. This priceless gift is a photo album that a friend of mine gifted to her special man. Each page is a scrapbooked page with a picture and one reason why she is so in LOVE with him. She put 100 reasons in this book! Check out this similar book that I handmade for my hubby a while back.

Personalized Photo Book

By: Lisa P.

Being sentimental is very important to my relationship. Every year I try to do something different for my man that goes with being creative yet sweet. I need to create something that will mean something to both of us, for our anniversary. It is the time to show each other why we are still in love.

I went through all of our old photos, found discs, and even scanned a ton of pictures to put onto my computer. I spent time going through the folder editing pictures and making the pictures look amazing. I uploaded all of them to Shutterfly even though I knew I wouldn’t use them all. I used memories to pick the pictures for my book. One tip I would suggest is to look online for deals throughout the different book making companies. Often times, they have deals for free books or highly discounted books. If Shutterfly isn’t having a good deal, try Peek-a-boo or Wink-flash. But you could Google these companies and many show up. Between the three of them, one is usually having a good deal.

Well this year, I created a book that Brent is sure to love. I made him a bound copy of a book including all of our memorable moments together, while writing down meaningful comments on every page. This took a while but I enjoyed reliving all those moments that were special to Brent and myself. I knew he was going to love the book because I threw in bits and pieces of things that would bring a smile to both of our faces. The inside jokes without writing them, as many others may looks through our book. But I included love letters through the book. I told him how great a father he is, how I love to go on trips with him, and how he is my best friend. The last page of the book was a real love letter, as I had a picture of us holding hands and then on the right I wrote a sweet letter including how many years we had been married.

Fruity Five

By: Wendy

Finding a gift for your hubby or wife can be complicated sometimes… if you are like me, when I need something or want something {wink, wink} I just go get it myself. So unfortunately for my husband, when a holiday or birthday comes around, I rarely need anything. Sad I know, but so true. My husband is completely opposite. He rarely asks for anything. However, because he never needs or wants anything, this makes the task of buying for him just as hard. He has been on an eating healthy kick for a few years now. I love it, it helps us all. J So this year for our 5th anniversary, I decided, instead of a treat… or flowers (which die quickly anyway) I would give him a homemade fruit bouquet. Five yummy flowers that he could eat! Luckily for me, my sister is amazing at making these… it is quite simple with the right cookie cutters! It was an absolute hit and he got a healthy snack to eat all day!

Love Wrapped Up

By: Corie

This anniversary gift is ALL ABOUT L-O-V-E and is super simple! Do you ever have those times in life where you read a love story and it motivates you to be more romantic? I think we can all use a love pick-me-up from day to day. This anniversary gift is full of famous love quotes from the last 100 years. All you have to do is grab a box and download the list of love quotes we have put together below. Then, cut each quote into a strip and place into the box.

Then, a couple of nights each week, you get to read a love quote together. These little love reminders will help us keep the flame burning a little brighter.

Message In A Bottle

By: Bridget

Unfortunately this bottle will not be washed up on shore by the sea, but you can still give your husband his own personal message in a bottle. Start by writing a LOVE letter of poem, or do what I did and take a page from your journal. I picked a page from when we were first dating where I wrote some pretty ROMANTIC stuff. I thought it was about time my husband got to see just how much I adored him back then (if he already didn’t know). The next step is to either rewrite the journal entry or write the LOVE letter onto some paper that you can distress and make look old. I just used some scrapbooking distress ink on the sides of the paper, and ripped it a little. Then find your bottle, you might already have something at home but if you don’t you can get old style bottle from almost anywhere (especially craft stores for cheap). Put your message inside the bottle, add some ribbon to the outside AND…… you have your message in a bottle. Your husband will appreciate the sentimental letter or journal entry and it comes in a cute package that you can also use as a table decoration for the night!

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Try out one of these seven ideas for YOUR next anniversary! The last thing I am going to stress in each post this week….would be to PLAN AHEAD! Nothing makes your spouse feel worse on that special day then finding out their spouse forgot about their anniversary!! The message you just sent was that you were putting other things before your spouse. 🙁 We all know actions speak MUCH louder than words and if this person is the most important person in the world….then make sure they KNOW that! 🙂 Most of these ideas are quick….and the ones that aren’t are very easy to do if you set aside time to do it. Whatever you choose to surprise your sweetheart with on your next special day…will definitely be appreciated!

We would LOVE to hear about anniversary gift ideas that YOU have done in the past!

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I am an outgoing and fun-lovin’ gal who was lucky enough to marry the man of my dreams! You could probably say I am an “extreme extrovert” as I LOVE to talk and be around people! I love ANYTHING creative and am not a fan of the “norm.” My favorite things in life are my family…especially my HOT husband, my friends, and my faith! {Oh – and love letters from my man….} I have a passion for life and I am having a BLAST doing this website with some of my closest friends!

My husband and I will celebrate 4 years in July. Thanks for the great ideas. Just had a little thought, if you are going to do the message in a bottle, after you give it to him/her you could always watch the movie Message in a bottle with your spouse. If you have Net flix, you can watch it instantly on your computer or gaming consul.

My girlfriend got her husband a special anniversary sundial, it is a clock that sits on the window sill in their apartment and uses the sun to tell the time. I thought it was a great gift because it makes rainbows in their room when the sun hits it – but the coolest thing is that she had the guy who made it for them add a special date line that the time shadow follows every year on their anniversary, and there is even a special mark on the line to celebrate the actual time they got married! It is one of the best anniversary gifts I have ever heard of, because it does something every year to celebrate their special day, and it is exciting to watch the shadow get closer to the special line as the day approaches!